The Concert

14

MAO ZEDONG WAS STILL on the point of death. For hours his closest relations and colleagues had been in his bedroom watching him die, and many others were waiting in nearby rooms. Some were still in the clothes they’d been wearing at the concert, when the news came that the Chairman was dying. Every so often, in his lucid intervals, he would look round at them as if to say, “So you went to the concert, did you?” And then they wished they could slip away and change into mourning. But they were all kept rooted to the spot by the knowledge that if they were away for a moment they’d find the door barred to them when they got back.

Mao moved in and out of a state of coma, but even when he emerged from it he was usually still delirious. At one point he saw the world, shrivelled to the size of a pitiful little globe, flying through infinite space, surrounded by cosmic dust and carrying his owe coffin. It was tied down with ropes which would later serve to lower it into the grave. (Lord, where was it all happening? On the forty-second or the forty-third parallel, or at some unknown latitude?)

The faces of those around him merged with other visions. Zhou Enlai must be dead by now, he thought in a lucid moment, otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to keep him away from my coffin. But, in a kind of painful whirlwind, the word “coffin” kept changing into “power”, and then changing back again, endlessly. As for the other people, they all vied with one another to hang on to the bronze handles of the coffin. If he could have spoken, he’d have shouted to them not to buffet him about like that!

That was the picture they conjured up, so obvious was their hatred of one another. Only the prime minister was missing. His will, his request that his ashes be scattered over China…It was when he, Mao, heard of Zhou’s last wishes that he himself had been struck down. God alone knew how many days had gone by since then. Zhou must be dead and buried a long time ago. Otherwise he'd be here, hanging on to the coffin handles with the rest. “Careful!” he called out inwardly. “Can’t you let me spend my last hour in peace?”‘

His dimming eyes scanned their expressionless faces. His mind conjured up, only to destroy them, one scenario after another for what would happen after his death. The uncertainty was unbearable. The various possibilities whirled around in his head like a ghostly ballet. Hua Guofeng put up against a wall to be shot, Jiang Qing made empress, her crown ornamented with Deng Xiaoping’s gold teeth. Yao Wenean married to Jiang Qing after her triumph, thee murdered by her in his sleep. Then both of them superseded by Deng Xiaoping. Then Peng, a lame man, in power, as in the days of Tamburlaine. (Deng-lang, perhaps they would call him.) Jiang Qing mouldering in prison, her hair hanging loose in despair. An empty plane flying in search of people alive or dead, to take to Mongolia, but no one would go on board — Hua Guofeng rose out of his grave to tell Mao, with a diabolical grin, that he wasn’t so stupid as to do so! “What have you done with your scissors and comb? Mao asked him. “I hear you fancy yourself as a hairdresser lately!” “Who told you that?” gasped Hua Guofeng. “Jiang Qing — it was the last denunciation of hers I was able to read, just after the concert you all rushed headlong to…”

The others stood round the coffin, silent.

“I oughtn’t to have left them so divided,” thought Mao with a groan, trying to turn over. The nurse hurried forward to help him. His eyes were half closed, but he could still see Zhou Enlai strolling through a field leading a crab on a string. “Why aren’t you attending to affairs of state?” Mao asked him. Zhou smiled and pointed to the crab, “I have to look after this now,’ he said. “It’s my cancer, and I’m trying to tame it,” “You’ve got it on a lead like a dog!’’ said Mao. “Of course, you’ve always been attracted by English customs.” Zhou didn’t answer. He started to walk away. “Are you dead?” Mao called after him, “It’s a long time since I read the papers or listened to the radio…” But by now Zhou was too far away to hear,

Lie Biao appeared instead. He was strapped into a plane seat, and the words “No smoking” kept blinking on and off over his head. Where were they flying to — the Kingdom of the Blue Monkey? “You plotted the coup — you ought to know what happened!” said the marshal “As the victim, you had a ring-side seat!” Mao retorted. “All the accounts were doctored, both on earth and in heaven!” said the other. Both on earth and in heaven? Mao was taken aback. He felt like asking Lin what had become of him. As a matter of fact, Mao had wondered at the time whether something hadn’t gone wrong… But he decided not to pursue the matter at present.

Then he saw Lin Biao again, but in the distance this time, wearing a raincoat and standing on a grassy plain. It was raining, and people were collecting up the débris from a burned-out plane. Mao nearly said, “You’re clutching your coat around you as if you were, burnt to a crisp.” The other only drew his coat closer with his yellow fingers.

“The fool — does he really think he boarded that plane alive?” thought Mao.

Lin smiled coldly. “I know everything,” he said. “But I’m looking for the person who burned in my stead. I’m trying to find his upper left canine. When you chose the poor wretch to take my place you forgot that my upper left canine is gold…” He laughed. “All great criminals get caught in the end because of some small oversight!”

As he laughed he made sure to show the gold crown in question. “It’s this little toossie-peg that gave you away!”

“All ghosts like bragging,” Mao answered. “Do you think I'm so foolish as to have put someone else in your place? It was you all right in that plane, you wretch! Have a good look at the débris and you’ll recognise yourself.”

Lin tried to feign indifference, but it was clear that he was astonished,

“But you yourself admitted you had me killed in a car!”

“Yes… But afterwards, during the night…”

“What? What happened during the night?”

So you don’t know as much as you’d like everyone to think, thought Mao. As for how the plane was brought down, neither you nor anyone else will ever know.

All but the grasses will seek in vain

To find the truth of the Mongol plain…

How could he make sure this couplet would survive him?

Mao groaned. The nurse helped him turn on to his other side.

* * *

It looks as if he’s going to die tonight, thought the observer at the North Pole, easing off his headset.

The satellites and teletype machines were going great guns…He remembered a very cold night when he’d slept at his maternal grandfather’s for the first time. The dogs barked a lot, but that wasn’t what had frightened him. Even now, after all these years, he couldn’t forget how one of them had bayed and bayed, and how his grandfather had said, “Someone in the village is going to die tonight”

Someone is going to die tonight on this planet, he thought with a shudder, The obituary notices were ready. The ravens were waiting for the signal to take flight.

He put his headset back on again and adjusted it. Mao Zedong was still in a coma. The rambles he could hear were in his own stomach. No matter how much he twiddled the knobs, all he could hear were death rattles…

Ekrem Fortuzi huddled over the radio, his brow furrowed in concentration, trying out various wavelengths. He still cherished a faint hope that some station, somewhere, would be more optimistic about the state of Mao Zedong’s health. But they all seemed conspiring to say he was slowly dying.

“Ekrem,” his wife called from her pillow. “Are you coming to bed or not? — this is the third time I’ve asked you!”

“Just coming!”

“I shan’t call you again. Mind you don’t wake me up!”

“I'm coming now, my dear,”

He stood up, looked first at the radio and then at the bed, then bent down and switched the set off.

“About time,” said his wife, making room for him. “You drive me mad with your Chinks!”

“Your talcum powder does smell nice,” he whispered.

“All I ask is that you don’t speak Chinese at the psychological moment,” she said. “I'd rather you spoke Italian.”

“Because that reminds you of Luigi, I suppose?”

“Of course not! What are you getting at?”

“I know it does remind you of him!”

“It doesn’t, I tell you! It’s just that I can’t bear the sound of Chinese any more!”

“Admit it does remind you of him, and I’ll do whatever youwant.”

She didn’t answer.

“Go on, admit it!”

“Well, it does remind me of something. But it was all so long ago …”

“Right, I’ll speak Italian then …But remember — no Chinese, no Italian! Do you see what I mean?”

“No — what?”

“I told you before: no Chinese, no hope of Italian either. But that’s enough philosophy. Or rather, let’s philosophise down here…like this…Amore mio …”

Their grunts and groans gradually died down. Thee in a clear voice, not at all breathless, she said.

“You spoke Chinese again!”

“Did I? I didn’t notice.”

“You’re hopeless!”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to get round her any more. She was well aware of it, so she turned over and went to sleep.

He lay still on his side of the bed until she had dropped off, then he got up and tiptoed over to the radio. He switched it on, very low, and put his ear to the loudspeaker. He stayed like that for a long time, and might have remained there in a kind of lethargy till dawn, if at a certain point his wife hadn’t heard him let out a sob.

“Ekrem!” she cried, in a fright. “What’s the matter?”

He couldn’t bring out any words. She stared at him wide-eyed, and was about to jump out of bed and come 0ver to him when he managed to stammer:

“Mao is dead.”

She looked over at him with pursed lips.

“Idiot!” she said.

But he wasn’t listening. He went on weeping, sobbing out every so often:

“My Mao, my own little Mao, you’ve gone… you’ve gone…”

“He’s round the bend,” she thought. “He’s gone completely bonkers!”

He went on talking to himself, mostly in Chinese, but reverting to Albanian for the affectionate diminutives he knew only in his own language.

“My own little Mao — and to think that while you were giving up the ghost I was making love like a pig!”

I’ll have to take him to see a psychiatrist, she thought. Tomorrow!

Her first impulse was to make fun of him, insult him, but suddenly, seeing him so forlorn, she couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. He must be the only person in Europe who was carrying on like that. She got out of bed, threw a cardigan round her shoulders, and went over to him.

“Ekrem,” she whispered. “What’s wrong? Come to bed, or you’ll catch your death of cold.”

Though she was still quite angry, she’d made an effort to speak gently. But he went on weeping buckets, perhaps even worse than before.

“He had to die some time!” she said soothingly. “He was very old — everyone said he was decrepit! What did you expect? Everyone knew he was at his last gasp. Come to bed, dear.”

“I can’t! Leave me alone!”

He’s nuts. she thought again. My God, what’s going to become of him?

“I can’t, you see,” he went on. “I feel all hollow inside. I studied his works very seriously — I was the only person in the world who understood all the nuances of his philosophy, I’ve compared the original texts with the English and French translations — they’re not at all accurate…I fell in love with him, we understood one another so well …He was so good …he didn’t believe in the horrible class struggle!”

“All right, all right/” she said, “you’ve told me all that before. Now come to bed before you get bronchitis, like last winter!”

“I kept telling you, but you only, made fun of me. He was our only hope, our star…”

Here we go, she thought.

“… and now it’s ‘gone out, our star has disappeared. We’ve all had it now. We’re finished. And you don’t even realize,”

“It might be just the opposite,’ she suggested, trying to reassure him. “Perhaps they’ll find a reason now for getting closer to China again. It’s always like that — people wait for a death in order to fix something that wasn’t working properly. They’ll say he and his obstinacy were the cause of all our differences …”

“But he was so good, so gentle, soft as velvet. And his face…his face was so smooth too …”

“Be that as it may, I'm sure it’ll work out as I say. They’ll blame him for the cooling off in our relationship, and well patch things up. Then everything will be all right.”

“Do you really think so? I don’t believe it for a minute.”

“Of course! It can only make things better.”

“And what if they go wrong again? He was a poet and a philosopher — a natural peacemaker. Where are they going to find another like him?”

“Others will be more liberal — you can be sure of that. The Chinese are fed up to the teeth with the Long March or whatever you call it…”

“Zhang Jeng,” he said.

“Well, they’ve had it up to here with the Zhang Jengl What they want now is peace, comfort and women…Don’t they say that at the Hotel Peking there’s a room where the Chinese leaders speed their evenings with ballet dancers?”

“If only things could turn out like that!” he sighed.

“We’ll know more about it tomorrow, Well go and call on a few friends and find out what’s going on. And now come to bed.”

“It’s a good thing you’re here to cheer me up,” he said, straightening up a little.

He had a restless night. Twice he made to get up to listen to the radio again, but his wife stopped him. The third time she spoke to him severely.

“What more do you expect to find out? It’s happened^ and there’s nothing to be done about it,”

He just looked sheepish.

“No, but I'd like to know what you’re hoping for,” she said,more gently.

“I'm hoping they might deny it!”

She laughed.

“You really are…!”

“No, why? it wouldn’t be the first time. There have been false reports of his death before. Several! Don’t you remember?” He was getting close to tears again. “As if they couldn’t wait for him to die!”

“Now that’s enough!” she said decisively. “Let’s get some sleep…”

It was a grey, reluctant-looking dawn. That morning it was she who made the coffee and brought him a cup in bed.

“Do you think they’ll embalm him?” he asked.

She gave him a sidelong look,

“Will you please give it a rest? We’ll go out and see some people — then we’ll find out something.”

“Which people?”

“Anyone you like. We could go to the Kryekurts’, They usually know what’s really going on.”

“You’re right. Let’s get dressed and go,”

“Don’t be ridiculous! It’s far too early. If we don’t watch out, people will be suspicious,”

“Yes, I suppose so. We don’t want to attract attention.”

They didn’t start out for the Kryekurts. place until after ten o’clock, but when they got there they saw they needn’t have worried about being too early. Apart from frequent visitors like Hava Preza and Musabelli, they found Lucas Alarupi, Mark and his fiancée already there. Alarupi was the former owner of what was once a little soap factory; it had now expanded to produce washing machines, shampoo and tooth-paste. Mark had the day off, as the concert that evening had been cancelled.

“Cancelled?” said Ekrem, as if to check he’d heard aright.

“Yes,” said Hava Preza. “No need to ask why.”

“It’s a good sign, I suppose,” said Hava Fortuzi.

“On the way here I saw a lot of official cars going towards the Chinese embassy, no doubt to offer condolences,’ said one of the others.

“I told you so,” whispered Hava Fortuzi to her husband. “The concert’s cancelled, the officials are going to register their condolences at the embassy… It’s going to be all right!”

Ekrem tossed his head and gazed at the shiny, sallow face of Lucas Alarupi. He’d heard a lot about him, and wondered why he was out visiting on a day like this. He must be a mine of information.

“Do you often come here?” Ekrem asked him, while the others went on with the general conversation. “I’ve been wanting to meet you for a long time.”

“I don’t go out very much,” answered the other. “We’re swamped with work, especially now, when we’re just coming up to the end of the quarter. And as well as production there are the committee meetings at Party headquarters, and socialist endeavour, and cultural activities, and all sorts of other things which may seem less important but which need a lot of attention. Eunning a factory involves a lot of problems, especially now, after the decisions taken at the last plenum of the Central Committee.”

Ekrem’s wife goggled, then looked round at the others as if to say, “Just listen to him!” She felt like shouting, “What’s all this about Party meetings and socialist endeavour? You’re jest a yesterday’s man like the rest of us I They don’t let you anywhere near your old factory let alone consult you about their problems! But Hava Preza gave her a look, and Ekrem nudged her, so she didn’t say anything.

“Well,” said Hava Preza to break the silence. “So you’ve got plenty to do and plenty of worries?”

“Of course,’ said Alarupi tonelessly. “As I said, carrying out the plan is only one of our problems. We also have to meet people with new ideas, evaluate pilot experiments, and so on. It sounds easy, but it takes a lot of doing.”

“He may be crazy himself,” Ekrem’s wife whispered to him, “but I don’t understand how the rest of you put up with his maunderings.“

“Ssh,” he said.

“But he’s in the same boat as we are, isn’t he? If not worse! No job, downgraded socially. So what’s all this about endeavour and committees?”

“I know, I know,” Ekrem answered, “But he believes, and wants to make other people believe, that things are back to what they were before …”

“But how …?”

The fact was, Alarupi had started to entertain this delusion when he heard that in China former factory owners had been made assistant managers of what had been their own firms, and were even allowed a share in the profits,

“I’ve always said that’s the most fantastic thing that ever happened, even in China,” said Ekrem’s wife.

“When it was announced he became a new man. It knocked him completely off-balance, and he started to spend all his time hanging round the factory. It’s his whole life. His briefcase is full of press cuttings about it, and graphs about the progress of the plan. At home he’s got a whole collection of wall newspapers, citations for workers’ awards, and so on. When things at the factory go badly he’s quite ill. If the Party criticizes it, he can’t sleep. In short, it’s the only thing he lives for.”

“Poor man!”

“Of course, he never forgets to calculate his share of the profits,”

“There you are!”

“Of course! What did you think?”

Hava Fortezi’ could — scarcely keep from laughing.

“Even so, he must be completely ga-ga.”

“Perhaps. I’d say he’s typical of our age — just an extreme example. Perhaps the most extreme in all…”

“In all Europe?” she interrupted.

“Maybe …What are you looking at me like that for?”

How else? Hadn’t she told herself only a few hours ago that her husband must be the only person in Europe to weep for Mao Zedong? And now here was another, hardly less extravagant oddity. What an age we live in, she thought. Ever since she’d left her youth behind, she’d always thought the world was going to the dogs. But she hadn’t expected it to go as fast as this!

“He’s a hybrid,” said Ekrem, continuing his whispered conversation with his wife. “A capitalist-communist hermaphrodite.”

“A loony, anyhow,” she answered. “I’d like to throw a bucket of water over him to bring him to his senses,”

“But why? He’s probably quite happy as he is,”

“Yes, dreaming! But we’re awake! Why should we have to suffer his nonsense, and without an anaesthetic!”

“It’s not his fault,” said Ekrem. “And anyway, perhaps it’s not just a dream. Perhaps it’s an omen, a sign of things to come!”

“No chance! It’s too late now for wool-gathering!”

At that she caught Hava Preza’s eye, which had been fixed on her reproachfully for some time because of the Fortuzis’ lengthy private parleyings.

Lucas Alarupi hadn’t noticed anything. He was still droning on.

“A fortnight ago we had a very good meeting with the star workers about exchanging jobs. We haven’t done so well with socialist endeavour, though, I'm sorry to say. The Party’s going to have something to say about that. Still, we can only do our best…”

People were surreptitiously shaking their heads. It was incredible to hear such talk in this room of all places. I wouldn’t have come if I’d known, thought Ekrem’s wife.

“But what do you say about what’s happened now?” Ekrem asked the former factory owner, trying to stem the flow, “Will Mao’s death change anything?’’

The other man shrugged,

“Difficult to say,” he answered. “It all depends on the struggle between the two factions that all the radio stations are talking about, Well have to see which side wins,’

“I wasn’t talking about China,’ said Ekrem, “I wonder what’s going to happen here,’

“Precisely …” Alarupi began.

“There’s no telling,” Hava Preza interrupted. “Some people say Mao did all he could to prevent relations between China and Albania deteriorating. Some say he did his best to undermine them,”

“What? Ill never believe such a thing!” protested Ekrem,

“Time will tell”

While they were exchanging theories about this, they heard the sound of a car drawing up outside.

“It’s the man upstairs,’ said Emilie, pointing to the ceiling.

“They’re worried. He looks very down to me,” said Hava Preza, who’d been peering out of the window.

“Let’s hope nothing awful’s going to happen.”

Then they heard footsteps going down the staks, and the sound of the car driving off.

Mark and his fiancée listened lethargically to the rest of them as they went on with their discussion. The girl’s grey eyes grew darker.

““Il fait froid,” she whispered to Mark, looking him straight in the eye.

He was anxious to go into the other room, too. From there these debates and reminiscences sounded like an echo from another world, forming a mere background to their amorous exchanges.

“In a moment,’ he whispered. “Wait just a bit longer.”

Emilie served coffee, and they all sipped solemnly, still talking about Mao’s death. Every so often their eyes would turn to where the portrait of old Nerihan looked down at them from the wall

“Il fait froid,” murmured the girl again”.

Then without a word she and Mark both stood up, not looking at anything in particular. When they were in the other room she was silent for a while, then flung herself into his arms, shivering not from cold but from a feeling of emptiness and some other, indefinable sensation.

“God, is it always going to be like this?” she sighed.

It was not a sigh of despair, or of joy; nor did it signify any expectation either of better or worse. It was more like a question containing something of all those feelings. Would she always have to make love like this, amid whisperings about some foreign country (this was usually the subject of the conversations they could hear through the wall), and echoes of another woman saying "Il fait froid” during another winter?

“Perhaps,” he answered faintly. Neither of them could decide whether they liked things as they were, or if they dreamed of a better world together.

Silva was late getting to the office, and when she did arrive she asked if she could leave early to go with Gjergj to the airport.

“Is he going away again?’ asked her boss. “Where to?”

“Where do you think?” said Silva, “China,”

“I presume it’s got to do with Mao’s death?”

“I suppose so.”

Linda was following all this with bated breath.

“You spend your life at the airport,” she said to Silva when the boss had gone out of the room.

“Do you know who I saw there the last time? I forgot to tell yoe at the time, I saw Victor Hila’s chinaman, with his foot in plaster!”

“Really?”

Linda felt herself blushing, and didn't know how to hide it. As for Silva, she was troubled too, at the thought that her friend might ask her what she’d been doing at the airport.

Bet at that point the boss came back and their conversation was interrupted.

At eleven o’clock Silva said goodbye to both her colleagues and left the office. When she got home, Gjergj wasn’t yet back from the foreign ministry, and after wandering around for a bit she sat down on the settee in the sitting room, her hands clasped in her lap. Then she remembered how her mother used to say it brought bad luck to sit with your hands like that, and she hastily unclasped them. She wished Gjergj weren’t going on this trip. For two, perhaps three weeks the apartment would seem silent and empty without him, and the life she and Brikena led there alone would seem very dreary. Then she told herself she was being unfair: the separation would be much worse for him than for them.

There was a ring at the bell, and she hurried to open the door. It was Gjergj.

“How did it go?” she asked.

He gave her a look that seemed to say, “What a question!” She noticed he was carrying his briefcase, and realised that her secret hope that the trip might be cancelled at the last minute had been in vain.

“Let’s go,” he said. “I’m a bit late.”

They hardly spoke on the way to the airport, Silva gazed at the wet road and the heaps of rotting leaves on either side. What awful weather to die in, she thought.

The airport was full of Chinese with their eyes full of tears. She saw Skënder Bermema’s wife waving at her from a little way off.

“What are you doing here?” Silva asked, going over.

“I’m waiting for Skënder. He’s coming home today. What about you?”

“Just the opposite,” said Silva, looking to see if her husband had got through the customs yet. “Gjergj is leaving.”

“Really? He’ll probably fly out on the plane Skënder flies in on.’’

“Perhaps. Frankly, I’m not very keen on this trip!”

Skënder’s wife didn’t know what to say to that. They looked at one another for a moment, their smiles fading, though their sympathy did not.

Gjergj reappeared, and they all chatted quite cheerfully for a bit about the coincidence, but Silva couldn’t quite conceal her uneasiness.

“You shouldn’t harbour such thoughts,” Gjergj teased. “I know it’s because the trip’s connected with a death, but the coffin isn’t going to be on our plane, you know!”

“Thank goodness for that at least!” Silva exclaimed.

“The plane’s late,” said Skënder Bermema’s wife, looking at her watch. “It ought to have landed some time ago.”

She was looking less animated now, as if she’d suddenly realized that while the other two were joking about anxiety, it was she who now had the right to be feeling worried.

“It’s a beastly night,” said Gjergj. “No wonder the plane’s late. Why don’t we have a coffee or something?”

They found a table and ordered coffee, A female voice announced that the plane had been delayed by bad weather, but would be arriving in ten minutes. The whole place began to stir. Some people got up from their tables and went over to the window to watch the plane land.

In due course the plane emerged heavily from the clouds. The interval between the time when the wheels touched down on the landing strip and the moment the aircraft came to a halt outside the terminal seemed endless. The passengers started coming down the gangway. Most of them were Chinese, and as they came nearer you could see their eyes were red with weeping. They must have heard about Mao’s death during the flight.

“Look, there he is!” cried Skënder’s wife, waving, though he was still a long way off.

“Yes!” said Silva. “He’s with the other chap …”

Skënder Bermema kissed his wife several times. The tenderest kisses are those of husbands returning from China, thought Silva, Through the noisy crowd that had come to greet the travellers, she saw that C–V— had a bruise on his cheek. It seemed to puzzle his friends, who were evidently asking him how he came by it. She was tempted to ask the same question. But a second or two later she had forgotten all about it.

Silva got home at about three o’clock. Brikena had put the lunch on, and was waiting.

“Did Father get off all right?” she asked.

“Yes.”

Brikena was clearly disappointed that they hadn’t taken her with them to the airport. After a moment she said:

“Uncle Arian phoned,’’

“Did he? What for?”

Brikena shrugged.

“Did he sound all right?”

“I think so. He wanted to speak to Father. Perhaps to wish him bon voyage,”

“I expect so,” said Silva, feeling relieved.

They ate almost in silence. The apartment seemed unnaturally quiet. While Brikena did the washing up, Silva wandered round the rooms, not knowing what to do with herself. Usually, when Gjergj went away on a mission, she and Brikena embarked on some kind of work in the house that couldn’t easily be done except when he wasn’t there, such as washing the curtains or remaking the mattresses. But this time Silva didn’t feel like doing anything like that. She wasn’t even tempted by the big trunk in which she kept family possessions that had been passed down from generation to generation. Often, when Gjergj was away, she and her daughter would spend hours poring over bits of embroidery, the white dress and tiara which three generations of Krasniqi brides had been married in, and innumerable other mementos.

Silva went out on the balcony; walked along between the clotheslines, with their multi-coloured plastic pegs waiting for the sheets to be hung out to dry; and had a look at the lemon tree. But she couldn’t take any interest in the lemon tree either. She realized that the date for spraying it with insecticide was long past. She sighed. All the tedious things one was supposed to bother with…

She went back inside. Brikena was crouching down by the book. case in the living room. She felt a day like this called for some unusual occupation, and as her mother hadn’t said anything about the trunk or the mattresses, she’d, decided to look at some of the family albums. Silva sat down quietly beside her and watched. Brikena’s fingers looked more slender than usual, perhaps because of the care with which she was turning the pages. Silva thought of all the things they might be doing: seeing to the curtains or, the mattresses, admiring ancient embroidery. But a voice inside her told her to leave the afternoon as it was: empty. Perhaps it would find some way of filling itself.